Hi all - I'm here in the granite belt with lots of gear, not much of a guide book and would love to trad lead but unfortunately lack a bit of trad experience.
Walked around turtle rock and sphinx rock yesterday looking for routes, I found a cool route on sphinx rock - snow white which would be very dooable but I''ve never seen bolts just sticking out of the wall, so have no idea what to do there. Secondly if I do manage to climb to the top, do any of these routes have bolt to rap of, how would I get down.

Turtle rock was a bit of a mystery for me - I know what your all probably thinking, your out of ya league dude, probably, but i am keen to try some basic lead. Is there even a basic sort of a lead around girraween with safe protection or is this area only for the super experienced.

Giraween is probably the worst place to try and find an example of a safe easy route. I'd seriously just do the 1 hour drive to Frog Buttress and try something with lots of abundant gear. Giraween routes are famous for being horribly runout and very technical. For example the only good grade 13 (at Turtle Rock) has one bolt in 30m. At worst try and find a local through the Queensland forums at Qurank.com

Thanks for that. Of to frog buttress I go. It is a shame though, that there isn't more for a lead beginner. Oh well, more training, harder climbing for me then. Still don't think it will help, not much for extreme runouts a ball game that I might play in the next life, to preserve this one.

Lets see, Snow white 15, commiting start but no real runout if you sling the bollard, rap chains on top of the rock. Arete route, 5 bolts, do it in bare feet if you like. The slabs at the back of Turtle, 15,16,17 with 4 to 6 bolts each and then run to the top. Staircase 14, Wading ape 15, rap in and then 5 or so well spaced bolts to the top.
You may as well include Charapace as even though you could deck if you fell at the wrong place, all the important parts are well protected.
In fact, I would much rather take a beginner to Girra than the greasy ledge filled KP.
I'll be back out there soon if you want to be shown around.
Frog is way more dangerous for a beginner than Girra. I don't know of anyone that has been seriously hurt climbing at Girra.

smaller climbing population in Qld in general, Giraween is further to drive from Brisbane, there is no current guidebook, climbing bans in years gone by, it has a reputation for run-out climbs, granite slab climbing. All the ususal reasons for a crag to get less traffic.

Granted, but why put just carrots, is it that much harder to just put a bolt plate as well. Or does that just
make it to attractive for beginner climbers to have a go, when really giraween seems to be reserved for
the highly experienced and hardcore.

I love Girra, it's such a casual place to climb, nice walks on rolling tracks that lead to awesome blocks
and towers of pristine granite, some of the best climbs I've done are Scimitar all trad Asana all carrots
and pygmy possum fossil very runout slab on carrots, (m)alice in wonderland? a knife edge arete on
carrots.
As to the use of carrots a Girra, they are less of a visual eyesore, and the park gets used by alot of
walkers, and as such they would complain about the destruction of the nature by climbers if they could
see hangers up every climbable rock in the park, climbing should be undertaken at the risk of the
participant, if you want to climb it then do so taking all due responsibility for your own actions!
Don't bitch about the carrots or the runouts! go and climb at nowra instead!, or just suck it up...BP

"Don't bitch about the carrots or the runouts! go and climb at nowra instead"

Well actually I wasn't, I was just trying to point out that as a beginner lead climber, maybe I'll give
some of these routes a go, but then I look at most of them and as you say BP, take responsibility for
my own actions and as such I just walk away, and live to climb another day.

I accept that bolts do deface the area considerably, but I wouldn't have thought the occasional plate
would make that much of a difference. Guess I could b wrong.

I understand that many very good climbers have gone to a heap of trouble bringing the bare minimum
protection that is allowed. Which is totally gr8, but for a novice, well I guess I will stick to seconding
my 21's 22's, build up my repitoire of low grade leading and come back another year. Just glad my
girlfriends parents live so close to stanthorpe, so I'm not quite beaten just yet....

are you still local to giraween and open to showing someone around? i am visiting the Gold Coast for the next few weeks and am keen to visit Giraeen. I only have my shoes and harness and can lead to 15-16 or follow toi 17-18.

i love granite and have climbed at toulomene meadows. i have multipitch experience and am safe.

Girraween is a special place to climb, and be away from the masses. The main reason for the carrot bolting is so that it is tolerated by the national parks. Less of an eyesore for the hikers and walkers who predominately use the park.
If you can't lead using bolt plates then you might want to climb elsewhere. The routes there are only run out if you can't climb at that grade. Don't go there to project harder routes than what you can climb.

It is an amazing place with beautiful climbing. It is nice when you can go climbing somewhere and actually grade the climbing on the quality of the climb and not on the grade and how well bolted it is.

I'm planning a camping trip up there with my family over Xmas. Mostly just camping & exploring with the kids, but my kids are keen climbers, and might have a friend with me who climbs, so would love to get on some easy-moderates there. I understand that there is not much in the way of printed guides for the area, but if anyone has anything that they can share, it would be great to do some planning / dreaming about meanwhile.